Forced to give it up. Grrrrrrr.....

In another post I shared the fact that I have been providing counseling to cancer patients and their families at a local hospital.  Anyone who knows me also knows that cancer has killed several people I've been pretty close to, including most prominently, my mother.  It's pretty obvious why I would be keen on helping people who are dealing with that kind of physical and/or emotional pain. 

It would be a very rewarding job even if I didn't have a personal beef with cancer.  Being that I do, it's easily the most rewarding experience I have yet had as a therapist.  I've had the chance to help quite a few people through my regular practice in the university's psychology clinic.  But I've never gotten near as much out of those experiences as I have out of this.

That's all coming to an end now.  And I'm pretty bitter about it.  To make a long story short, my academic advisor (my boss), is forcing me to quit.  She doesn't want me overextending myself.  That is, she wants me to make sure I have enough time to contribute to her projects, which will have zero bearing on my future career.  She's a researcher.  I'll primarily be a clinician.  And she's the one who told me a couple of years ago that I should commit to either research or clinical work.  Well, I did.  But that doesn't change how much she expects out of me in terms of research.  So instead of counseling people who are desperately in need of it, I'll be recruiting research participants for a study that provides counseling to no one at all.  Yay!  (I do hope the sarcasm is obvious)

Of course, my advisor would point out that I'm committed to being a therapist at a whole new location now.  I, along with another student in my lab, have been working with the local VA clinic to make it possible for us to provide counseling for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  That seems like a pretty obvious move since I'll be providing counseling to active duty soldiers in two years.  But, since I am committed to being a clinician, I intended to work at the VA and the cancer center concurrently - that much more experience for me.  Practicing in two different places outside of the university is extremely common in our department.  Students do it all the time.  Nonetheless, after I'd already committed to both the VA and the cancer center I was told that I would have to pick one or the other.  And since I'm one of only two founding students at the VA site, there was never any question which one I had to pick.  (Note that I was not given the option to stop recruiting for the research study that will have zero positive impact for my career.)

So, bye-bye cancer center, hello VA.  And on an entirely related note, the chip on my shoulder regarding academia has grown even larger.  How I got that chip in the first place is another story for another time.  For now, let's just say that I think most university faculty members deserve to work with each other.  And if you've heard the kinds of things they say about each other behind closed doors, then you know how much of an insult that really is.  If professors were honest enough to admit that they see grad students, first and foremost, as expendable resources to further their own careers, then it wouldn't bother me so much.  But when using me as a tool gets dressed up as "looking after my interests", that really chaps me.